Coastal Fieldwork at Robin Hood's Bay

Robin Hood's Bay offers tremendous opportunities for geography fieldwork and whenever possible we are happy to tailor make activities to support KS3, GCSE and A-level fieldwork investigations.

Coastal Themes and Tasks

Geology of the bay - a classic UK site for geological study

Landforms resulting from coastal erosion

Coastal recession and why rates vary along this stretch of coast

Sea defences - examples from pre-1890 to present

Current threats from coastal erosion

Coastal management and defence strategy

Longshore drift fieldwork related to beach size and pebble analysis

Our most popular coastal fieldwork option is a day spent at Robin Hoods Bay, with half a day evaluating the coastal defences (including bi-polar assessments, mapping management strategies and undertaking a cost-benefit analysis of each defence). The second half of the day focuses on coastal processes, including collecting pebble data and comparing a sample of stones from the north and south of the bay, and collecting data on the beach profiles in front of the village, this is then linked to the concept of Long Shore Drift, coastal processes and coastal defence issues.